


Five Times Sophie Slapped Nate, and the One Time She Didn’t Have To

by crayonbreakygal



Category: Leverage
Genre: Drama, F/M, Romance, Slapping
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-06
Updated: 2017-09-06
Packaged: 2018-12-24 11:06:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,558
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12011421
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crayonbreakygal/pseuds/crayonbreakygal
Summary: Whether it was a con or not, Sophie always got the best of him. Takes place prequel, through season four.





	Five Times Sophie Slapped Nate, and the One Time She Didn’t Have To

Five Times Sophie Slapped Nate, and the One Time She Didn’t Have To

 

She had to get away from him. Nathan Ford, insurance investigator, literal pain in her behind, was attempting to get her arrested.  Well, that would not do.  Sophie Devereaux was not going to get arrested by some backwater pseudo cop who had no idea what he was doing. 

“You beast,” Sophie told Nate, her hand coming up to his shocked face.

Yes, she’d slapped him, leaving a slight red mark. She really hadn’t hit him that hard, just enough to get his attention.  Spending a night in a Syrian jail was not in her plans.

“I, we, I didn’t,” Nate stuttered.

“You most certainly did.”

With that distraction, Sophie was able to get away while the officer questioned what Nate’s intentions were toward her in the dark alley. She had lured him there to make sure her getaway was clean.  Later, much later, she’d pay him back with a drink or two, away from this gone sour job.  It hadn’t even been Nate’s fault. He was just the distraction to get away from the real bad guys. Damn Russians.

\-------------------- 

Yes, damn Russians indeed, Sophie thought a few years later.  She often wondered how many enemies she’d actually made.  Her marks usually were dumbfounded and didn’t link her to the crimes she committed.  She would slip out unnoticed, loot safely tucked away or perhaps even sold.  Not this time. She’d misjudged her mark.

“You are an utter bastard,” Sophie repeated in her Russian accent so that the officer could hear her.

“What?” Nate screeched.  “You are one frustrating woman.”

“Do not touch me again.”

Playing her crowd just like a soap opera.  Nate flinched a little, knowing that the slap was coming his way. He knew of her antics, plus had approved of such antics to get her out of trouble.  Her eyes were ablaze with indignation, her posture in fight or flight mode.

“Oh, you were asking for it, babe.”

That must have hurt, Sophie thought later.  She’d made it look good, maybe a little too good. Nate had moved the wrong way at the last moment. Oh well, no time to rehearse their parts. The sneer on his face was very real as was the redness on her palm.  She’d have to give him more than a drink or two for this one.

It had worked though.  He’d gotten her out of there, cuffing her hands behind her back. They never knew that he wasn’t some government official coming to retrieve her.  Luckily his accent held up, although she did explain to him later that he needed to work on it. 

“Did you have to hit me so hard?”

\---------------------- 

“You call me. You tell me you need me, so you can do this?”

Sophie didn’t know which action had hurt the most.  Leaving Nate to Sterling’s devices or the slap she delivered right after kissing him senseless.  She hadn’t hesitated when Tara told her it was all going south.  Sophie had already been in transit anyway.  It was time to come home, even if he had been an ass to her a few months prior. 

Her hand stung as she climbed into the helicopter. Her getaway had been for naught, at least for their mastermind. His ultimate plan to save the rest of them had been to sacrifice himself. She probably should have reserved another slap for Sterling, but Eliot would have taken that as an invitation to deck the asshole in her steed. 

Her slap was a warning to Nate to not mess with her ever again like that. She could take care of herself.  Maybe not Hardison or even Parker.  Eliot, well, he could take care of himself and more.  Except he had not taken care of business when it came to Nate.

“Don’t,” Eliot warned as they flew to safety. “He walked down that path.”

“Bastard,” she shouted over the noise in the helicopter.

Parker shook her head in agreement.  If only they knew the slap happened for many reasons, not just for the aborted phone call or even that kiss that would fuel many a fantasy over the next few months while they planned to get him out of Sterling’s clutches.

Uncurling her other hand, she saw the red stain, hidden from the others. He not only sacrificed his freedom, he could possibly have sacrificed his very life for them. 

As she looked up, her eyes traveled over her three very best friends: Hardison with a look of worry, fingers flying over his phone; Parker, who had curled herself up in a tight ball, hands clutching around her legs tightly; and Eliot, whose eyes bore a hole through her. Dammit, he knew.

Grabbing the blood stained hand, he held it, telling her with his eyes that he’d get Nate out, if he survived.

“Very distinctive stance,” Eliot mouthed her way.

“Bastard,” Sophie mirrored, making Eliot smirk.

\-------------------- 

Ribs?

“Seriously? For breakfast?”

Now she was just getting a little sadistic.  Slapping Nate for a con was always in the cards. They definitely played the arguing couple quite well.  Causing a scene during a con with Nate was always satisfying since it usually ended with Nate being physically harmed. Not too physically harmed. What’s a slap or a knee between friends?

Thinking on her feet was what Sophie did best.  This slap was helping cover the fact that she and Nate were seen in public together.  Creating these scenarios on the fly was her specialty.  Nate caught on fairly quickly, although the smell of barbeque sauce still followed her after.

She might even take a swing at him for calling her little filly.  Equating her to a horse was just not right.

 ------------------

“Sophie and I are gonna run an abbreviated version of Roman Wedding. Not so hard.”

They both were on the same page now after working together for over four years.  He could read her, she could read him, mostly.  It was so hard to not flinch when Sophie was ready to slap him.  He’d have to ask Eliot if he was teaching her self-defense techniques.  Her hits and shoves were beginning to take on too much realism and he was the one who was usually the victim.

Now she was getting so wound up playing the jilted interior designer, he didn’t know if he could get her to come down.  Of course, telling her she didn’t see the big picture didn’t help matters.  One bit.

He always went in to one of these playacting things with a bit of truth, just so if the mark started questioning things, he could follow the narrative closely enough to not be confused.  So the bit about the bigger picture, in his mind, was very true. Sophie sometimes got so caught up in the nuances of the con that she forgot the bigger picture.  He would always remind her and get slapped for it. 

That last one was a whopper.  Thank goodness the mark was convinced that she was walking away from the job.  His jaw hurt for days.

\------------------ 

“The card, it was sweet.”

He meant it as an apology because of what he’d said on camera about her.  She’d seen it, before Hardison had deleted it. Now there would be no evidence for the documentary filmmaker or for Sophie to go back and view when she was pissed at him.

“I just, I wanted you to know, you know, how I feel. That was all just an act.”

“So you’re not a controlling bastard who runs our lives?”

“Well, I’m not…”

Instead of Nate downing his drink, Sophie took it from him and swiftly downed it in one go.

“Not what, darling?  Remember who we’re talking about here? I have evidence.”

Nate leaned over the bar, mere inches from her face.

“Hardison got rid of it.”

Sophie waved her notebook in his face.

“Seriously?”

“Evidence,” she repeated.

Nate opened the notebook, noticed all the hash marks next to things he supposedly did to her daily.

“You don’t think I value your opinion?  Stealing your ideas?”

“How many times have I come up with an idea to have you ignore me and come up with the same exact one moment’s later?”

“I do?”

“You do.”

“Oh. Maybe I need to listen better,” he mumbled out.

“Excuse me?  I didn’t hear you.”

“I’ll try to listen, to your suggestions. Just don’t slap me, or knee me or…”

“Or what?” Sophie said as she came around his side of the bar.

“Or um, you know. Do that,” Nate exclaimed as Sophie grabbed his ass.

“I thought you liked when I did that?”

“Not on a job. It’s distracting,” he answered as she backed him up against the bar.

“Oh, so I’m distracting now. Is that right?”

“Um, no. I mean, maybe, sometimes. Not your fault most of the time.”

“So it’s my fault some of the time? Nate?”

“Well, like right now. Totally your fault.”

It didn’t take but a few seconds for Sophie to pull him down, lips and hands all over each other.  A very hard swat had him raising his head from her neck.

“Sophie, is this gonna be a thing?”

“Do you want it to be a thing?”

Nate turned his head, contemplating what she was offering.

“Still have one of those blindfolds?”


End file.
